Opening with the music of Avicii (How au courant, Francine!), homocon radio shrieker Tammy Bruce joined today’s CPAC panel on how to expand the conservative base. Her bit starts at 13:00 with the declaration that she used to be a liberal, but now knows the truth.

Via the New York Times: The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved Loretta E. Lynch to be the next attorney general, sending her nomination to the full Senate for what is likely to be a contentious vote. The panel voted 12 to 8 to advance Ms. Lynch, President Obama’s pick to replace Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. as the …

The Ayn Rand Institute argues that Social Security is “legalized theft.” At the end of her life, Rand was collecting both Social Security and Medicare benefits, but that was only fair, they say, because that money had already been stolen from her.

Via Politico: The head of the Log Cabin Republicans has been invited to speak on a panel at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, the pro-gay rights group announced Monday. Executive Director Gregory Angelo said he will be speaking on a panel called “Putin’s Russia: A New Cold War?” alongside Seth Cropsey, Cliff May, Amanda Brickell Bellows and potential 2016 …

CPAC organizers today announced the addition of Chris Christie to this year’s speakers roster. Christie, as you may know, is one of the far-right’s most detested Republicans and many of the Tea People will likely not be too pleased about this. Curiously, CPAC regular Mike Huckabee has declined this year’s invitation.

“The American Conservative Union has the right to invite or not invite whoever they want to the Conservative Political Action Conference, but they should be honest about the reasons why. The ACU is fond of hiding behind a fig leaf stating gay people are welcome as guests, but the ability to buy a ticket to CPAC was never what our …

RedState editor Erick Erickson has previously called gay Americans “terrorists.” Today he flat-out compares us to ISIS in a post about the Washington state florist. In Denmark, France, and elsewhere we have seen Islamic extremists take lives because of the Islamic extremists’ beliefs. They do not want tolerance. They do not want pluralism. They do not want to show respect …

Via the Hollywood Reporter: Fourteen months after he sparked a major controversy for making remarks widely perceived as anti-gay, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson has been named the recipient of a free-speech award from Citizens United, an organization routinely disparaged by Hollywood liberals. Robertson will receive the “Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award” at this year’s Conservative Political …

National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg today points to a just-released study which shows that tens of millions of dollars donated to Tea Party-affiliated PACs went nowhere. And by nowhere, he means into somebody’s pockets, but not the candidates’. Goldberg excerpts from the study: How many conservative candidates lost in 2014 because of a lack of funds? How many of them …